Justin Ng captured this beautiful scene last night (July 21, 2014) It’s another of his “impossible” shots – that is, photos that inspire more astrophotographers in light-polluted cities to unveil the beauty of the elusive Milky Way galaxy. Justin wrote:

The image is a result of stacking several exposures taken, without moving the camera or changing the lens, over a period of approximately 35 minutes. It shows you how the night sky looked like at 9.10PM SGT before the spectacular laser show started from 9.30PM SGT onwards. We can’t see the night sky with our naked eye here due to its extreme light pollution and so, I’ve used a very complex workflow to unveil the details of the night sky before I stacked it against the beautiful foreground, showing the exact position of the Milky Way galaxy from this angle at 9.10PM SGT. I’ve also stacked a one-minute exposure shot for the green light trails from the riverboat. Minor star trails are visible in the image due to the correction of distortion and correcting the distortion with the lasers is no easy task. If I had corrected the distortion of the foreground image before I stacked the night sky image, the position of the Milky Way will not be accurate.

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.